Deleting Vista After Windows 7 Install

[lolguy]

I have an existing Vista install that I'd like to just uninstall or delete. My Windows 7 has been installed for some time and everything that needs to have been deauthorized or uninstalled from Vista has been taken care of.

Vista is on C and 7 on K in the attached Disk Management screen.

I've seen other threads that refer to both being on the Boot drive but I do not believe that to be the case here.

Your perspective and expertise is greatly appreciated.

John

 

[Petey7]

It looks like the master boot record is on K, but I'm not 100% sure. It would be good to have a 7 install or recovery disk ready in case. If it is actually on C and you delete it, you will have to run a startup repair 3 separate times, with reboots in between. As for actually deleting it, please refer to the tutorials below.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2668-partition-volume-delete.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2670-partition-volume-extend.html (to extend one of the volumes to use unallocated space)

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello lolguy, welcome to Seven Forums!





You will need to mark the Windows 7 partition "K ?" as "Active" and do as many as 3 separate startup repairs with system restarts between each repair to create the boot file to Windows 7, have a look at the tutorial at the link below to get some perspective on this and if you have further questions feel free to ask.


Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

It looks like the master boot record is on K, but I'm not 100% sure. It would be good to have a 7 install or recovery disk ready in case. If it is actually on C and you delete it, you will have to run a startup repair 3 separate times, with reboots in between. As for actually deleting it, please refer to the tutorials below.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2668-partition-volume-delete.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2670-partition-volume-extend.html (to extend one of the volumes to use unallocated space)

If he just deletes it he'll have to use a 3rd party like PWBD to recover the space back into another partition; though it would be a good idea to do a wipe of the "Vista C:" partition first (before it's deleted) to remove any old Windows code and then it can be resized if needed.


Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD

click to enlarge


​

 

[Barman58]

Just to confirm that from the drive management shown the active drive is the C: drive and deleting this partition will render the win7 install un-bootaable.

This is not a major issue but will need the start-up repair as suggested above.

I assume from the fact that the win7 installation shows as K: that the install of win7 was made from inside vista - or is the screenshot from the Vista install ?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Nigel, as K: is "Boot" that was sniped in Windows 7.

 

[Barman58]

Yes Ted, That's what is a little worrying, Hopefully the start-up repair will either sort out the non standard drive designation or will allow the running as k:

This could of course cause issues in future for any applications that incorrectly hard wire the registry to point to a program or .dll on c:

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Yes Ted, That's what is a little worrying, Hopefully the start-up repair will either sort out the non standard drive designation or will allow the running as k:

This could of course cause issues in future for any applications that incorrectly hard wire the registry to point to a program or .dll on c:

That's a valid point as I hadn't considered why, if K: is boot and it's in W_7 why it's not listed as C: and Vista something else.

 

[Petey7]

Indeed, it seems to be quite simple to have to OS partition as one besides C.

EDIT: reading the above post, I wonder, could you not make a work around for the problems the two of you describe.

 

[Barman58]

Hi Ted,

I've seen it before, if you install a new OS from within an old one (like one of the special "upgrades" that were suggested when win7 first appeared), then when the drive is set-up before the first reboot during install the c: drive is still active and so the installer has to use another drive letter.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Indeed, it seems to be quite simple to have to OS partition as one besides C.

EDIT: reading the above post, I wonder, could you not make a work around for the problems the two of you describe.

As Nigel has said, that would depend if prog/apps have installed to Windows 7 as K: and will look for K: and if the startup repairs change the drive letter to C: will said prog/apps still run correctly.

 

[Petey7]

If the programs are set to look for K:, and the partition is changed to C:, it can be changed back to K: with disk management.

 

[Barman58]

Hi Petey,

the problem is that when the system is set up on K: all the system pointers in the registry will point to this as the system drive. It may be possible to manually reset all these - but it would be a task on the scale of rebuilding eggs from an omelette.

The system will work as is until some badly coded installer assumes that it's installing onto the C: drive and writes its information to reflect this.

Edit
Disk management will not allow you to change the system drive letter so you would have to use a 3rd party solution

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hi Ted,

I've seen it before, if you install a new OS from within an old one (like one of the special "upgrades" that were suggested when win7 first appeared), then when the drive is set-up before the first reboot during install the c: drive is still active and so the installer has to use another drive letter.

Hello Nigel, good info thanks; this needs to be taken into consideration by the OP before any changes are made to the system as is.

 

[Petey7]

Barman, you are indeed right. This is why my previous post only addressed one possible issue, and not the other. I have no clue how to circumvent an installer assuming it is going on to C:, when it does not give an option to change the install path in the installers GUI.

 

[Barman58]

My actual advice to the OP would be to seriously consider biting the bullet, and remove the vista partition and re-installing win7, if only to prevent any possible issues later on.

not pleasant perhaps but probably best for the long term especially as there is such a complex drive/partition structure already in place

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

My actual advice to the OP would be to seriously consider biting the bullet, and remove the vista partition and re-installing win7, if only to prevent any possible issues later on.

not pleasant perhaps but probably best for the long term especially as there is such a complex drive/partition structure already in place

Maybe do a wipe to the Vista partition to remove all the Vista code first and then install Windows 7 back to the same position it is now because of the way HDDs are laid out? The safest way would be to use PWBD to do the wipe as Windows won't do a "clean all" to just 1 partition on a HDD.

 

[lolguy]

Wow! Thank you all for the information. To answer one of the questions asked, The screen shot of Disk Management was taken while booted to Win7. So, I'm not sure if that changes anything.

I'd obviously been hoping that since K: (Win7 install drive) is also a boot drive, I'd be able to delete the entire C: drive contents and rename K: to C: using Disk Management.

Would it seem I am too optimistic?

Thanks and regards.

 

[Petey7]

As stated above, the problem with renaming it is that all of your programs look for files on the K: drive to run, and the lack the ability to simply scan the whole computer for them. This means that the programs would not run correctly, if it all. I also have serious doubt about any shortcuts working.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello mate, what you're seeing as "boot" just means that is the OS that is booted or running at the time, nothing else; I hope this clears that up for you.

Don't forget to post back with what you decide to do and any updates.